Jane Austen

Emma thinks she knows what is best for everybody, including herself. This is one of many editions of this 1815 novel. Emma, when first published in 1816, was written when Jane Austen was at the height of her powers. In it, we have her two greatest comic creations -- the eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and that quintissential bore, Miss Bates. In it, too, we have her most profound characterization: the witty, imaginative, self-deluded Emma, a heroine the author...

With Mr. Dashwood's death, his wife and two daughters, Elinor and Marianne, must accustom themselves to genteel poverty. When Marianne meets the man of her dreams, everyone expects a marriage; unaccountably, he rejects her, with devastating effect. It falls to Elinor, the sensible elder sister, to pick up the pieces, while harboring a secret longing of her own. In Sense and Sensibility, the warmth between two very different sisters contrasts with...

As Catherine Moreland begins to mature, many of her illusions collapse under the reality of middle-class life.

Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon (1817) tells the story of a quaint seaside village and its inhabitants. Charlotte Heywood is invited by Mr. and Mrs. Parker to stay the summer with them at Sanditon, where Mr. Parker spent his youth and where he now wants to create a tourist resort. While there, Charlotte gets to know and observe the many colorful residents of Sanditon, including the wealthy, twice-widowed Lady Denham; her ward, Clara Crereton,...

Love and FreindshipLove and Freindship and Other Early Works is a collection of short epistolary stories initially meant to amuse Jane Austen's family. Austen wrote these stories at the age of 14 and 15 and read them aloud to her family. All the epistolary stories are satirical mocking the 18th-century English society from the mushy love novels to the former kings and queens of England.